HOW-TO: Getting Podcasts on a Portable Media Center (and other Windows Media Devices)

In a continuation of our Podcasting series, for this week's HOW-TO we look at how to get Podcasts on non-iPod devices. A Podcast is usually an audio program somewhere on the web that can be downloaded automatically to your audio playing device, so you can listen to it wherever and whenever you want. You actually do not need an iPod to publish or receive Podcasts, but the "Pod" name caught on, so many folks have emailed us asking if they can use their Windows Media devices as well as Portable Media Centers. You can and we'll show you how all using free programs.

Ingredients for this How-To:
Windows Media Player 10
iPodder

Windows Media Device (we're going to use the Portable Media Center)

Getting Started
If you have a Windows Media Device such as a Dell Digital Jukebox or a Portable Media Center, you've likely already installed Windows Media 10, and if you haven't, make sure to do this before you proceed. Windows Media 10 offers a lot of new features, but the ones we're most interested in are auto-sync and auto-playlists—this will allow you to grab the audio shows, download them to your hard drive and have them automatically sent over to your portable device.

Ipodder
Download and install iPodder. You don't need an iPod or iTunes to use this application. After installing, and launching the application—Start > Program Files > iPodder—the first thing we'll need to do is add an RSS feed that tells iPodder where to get the audio files.

Click add and cut and paste this link in to the dialog box:
http://www.engadget.com/common/videos/pt/rss.xml

Click check for new podcasts and then go away for awhile. While you're waiting, click the Scheduler tab in iPodder and check off "Check for new podcasts automatically". Click "Check at regular intervals" and choose how often you want to check, we chose 8 hours, but you can choose whatever will work for you best. Click "Apply scheduler settings".

Windows Media Player 10

Crank up Windows Media Player 10, Start > Programs > Windows Media. Click Tools > Options.

Click the Library Tab and click Monitor Folders.

Now we'll add the place iPodder downloads the audio files, this way, Windows Media will know where they're at.

Click Add, the browse to: My Computer > Drive > Program Files > iPodder > downloads, click OK.

Then Click OK again to add to the list. Click OK again.

Click the Library Tab in the Windows Media Player, then right click the "Auto Playlists" item in the left bar.

Select new, and name your list, we called our "My Podcasts"

Click the green plus button that says "Click here to add criteria", then scroll down and select "more"...

This is where we're going to tell the auto playlist to add files that are in the iPodder directory. Choose "File Name", click OK, then in the New Auto Playlist window, click the "Click to Set" link and type in iPodder.

Syncing up

Now we'll want to have the Windows Media automatically send the audio files over to the device when you plug in. Click the Sync tab in Windows Media, then click the "Set up Sync" link.

Choose Automatic, and click the "Customize the playlists that will be syncronized" then click Next. Scroll down to the "My Podcasts" playlist and check it off. You can of course add other ones if you like, or .if you've already done this, just add "My Podcasts". Click Finish.

If you've already downloaded content with iPodder, Windows Media will start the transfer to the device.

Finishing up...
After we wrote this up, we found a few other resources: Jake Ludington's Podcasting with Windows Media is a great article (in fact, it's basically the same as ours, but also shows how to only keep items from the last 7 days and some other good tips) and if you want to make Podcasts on your PC, the Weekly Standards has a good how-to as well.

A little soap boxing...
Podcasts aren't meant to be for one platform, one device or even just one format—the most important part of a broadcast of any kind is audience, and we hope this how-to helps get more people listening.

Now if you own a Windows Media device like a Portable Media Center, jump around and scream for Microsoft or someone to start making it as easy to get video content as it is to get audio content. Imagine thousands of TV shows, movies and videos from around the world delivered to your computer and portable video player each day. There are some ways to do this, but it's a long way from where audio is at right now, and even that is a little tricky to set up as you'll see.

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Phillip Torrone can be reached via his personal website: http://www.flashenabled.com or [e-mail]

[StuBee @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

I have a Palm TC (wifi) and can play the Podcasts by:
1) Installing RSS Reader from Standalone.
http://standalone.com/palmos/hand_rss/
2) Setting up a subscription to the Engadget RSS feed in the Palm RSS Reader.
3) When reading the Palm Engadget RSS Feed on my palm..hit Ctrl-W. This will connect to the internet and download the file to my SD Card.
4) I can then use MMPlayer (or other mp3 player) to play the file.

[PS. MMPLAYER can also play streamed mp3's which would work with the engadget podcasts as well. But you have to manually paste the URL in]

[Mark @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Note that to make WMP10 sync automatically, you MUST also have WMP10M on the device itself. Older devices will still work but won't sync by themselves, you have to tell them to sync.

Alas.

[kinrowan @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

This has already been seen here:
http://www.jakeludington.com/archives/000405.html, but with regard to any style of MP3 player, not just WMP devices. And with many of these devices you could use the "Set Up Sync" option in WMP on your lap/desktop to automate the syncing process. Pretty slick if you're a non-iPod-owner like me.

"Podcasting" is not just for iPods. The term is dicsriminatory ;->.

[Gordo @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Anyone available to help with the configuration?

My set up:
a Rio Carbon on WinXP SP1 with Windows Mediaplayer 10 and iPodder.

iPodder is set to download content to:
"C:My DocumentsMy Received Podcasts"

This happens no problems.

I've set WMP10 to watch the above folder via tools...optionslibrary tab in WMP10.

I've created an auto playlist as per the instructions. But the list gets populated with just 1 or 2 mp3 podcasts.

I think the FileName auto playlist configuration item is the wrong one as this is just the file name which is random between feeds. Whats really needed is a Criteria option for FilePath. Do you agree?

So you could say populate the playlist with tracks the contain the text "C:My DocumentsMy Received Podcasts".

How do others get around this?

Cheers
Gordon

[Scott Kingery @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Gordon... I get around that by using Doppler instead. I like it because I can set it to just receive the last 1 podcast if I want (helpful if you are just starting out or returning from vacation so you don't have bandwith drain trying to catch up on all your feeds). Doppler seems to automatically update the WMP 10 library and then I have a podcast autoplay list like you have above that I use to sync to my mp3 device.

What I really wish is that WMP 10 could be changed to the last say 3 days instead of 7. 7 is way too long and makes me skip around stuff I have already heard on my device.

[Michael Levin @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Anybody have problems using the Sync option? When I try doing the following:

"Syncing up - Now we’ll want to have the Windows Media automatically send the audio files over to the device when you plug in. Click the Sync tab in Windows Media, then click the “Set up Sync” link."

The “Set up Sync” link is disabled. How do I enable it?

[Fred Amini @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

I am in the process of setting up podcasting with the Creative's Nomad Juke Box Zen Extra MP3 player.

Is this unit kosher to download the podcasts?

[Lance Robinson @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Of course you can download podcasts to a Nomad mp3 player. Anything works, really. You don't even have to have a mobile device at all. There's no rule that says you can't listen right on your desktop. In fact, the Primetime Podcast Receiver not only allows you to listen/view podcasts right inside the application itself, but it also has automatic integration with iTunes and Windows Media Player playlists.

If youre using a file mountable USB player you can just download directly to that folder, on the USB device itself.

If you're using an iPod or Pocket PC - you can use the Sync functionality of iTunes and WMP to sync directly to your device.

Hope this helps.

Lance

[Eirikso @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

I have put together a guide for the people that would like to listen to podcasts on their mobile phone. Heavily inspired by the one here at Engadget. You find it here:
http://www.eirikso.com/2005/06/01/how-to-listen-to-podcasts-on-your-mobile-phone/